Monsieur Poirot returns
Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective with the rotund glasses and curling moustache of Agatha Christie’s intriguing whodunits, will not lie interred peacefully in Curtain. Christie’s last novel, curiously, had itself lain for years as a handwritten manuscript in a bomb-proof shelter during World War II while the famous author stayed on defiantly in London during the German blitz.
Poirot comes back to life after 38 years into a world whose reading habits have changed considerably. As the visionary Jeffrey Bezos (of Amazon fame) puts it, the written word has a future in print and digital in the modern world. Sophie Hannah’s Poirot is eagerly looked forward to even if the resurrection may have more to do with making money for its publishers than paying genuine tribute to the soul of Christie, whose hero solved mysteries for middle-class clients of his days.
Retrieving heroes of dead authors has proved remarkably successful in John Gardner’s James Bond novels, as the author went on to pen more titles than the estimable Ian Fleming. The fictional Jason Bourne outgrew his creator Robert Ludlum too with immense success. In that sense, such “franchise” ventures are not loaded with much risk as the original authors would have done splendidly in establishing a cult around the hero they gave life to in print, which is why the persona assumed so many more memorable dimensions at the theatre and in films. The digital age is certain to welcome a character created by one of the world’s finest crime writers.
Post new comment